1 Copper

Ailenware: Why Are Warranty Costs so High Compared to XPS??

Hi all, I'm debating buying two systems at the moment, a dell XPS 15 in the Black Friday Sales for approx £2000 and an equivalent Ailenware M15 for similar money. What has shocked me, however, is how expensive the warranties are on the Ailenware products, despite costing similar amounts.

The XPS warranties are as follows: 1Yr Premium Support with Onsite Included in price 2Yr Premium Support with Onsite + £60.00 3Yr Premium Support with Onsite + £100.00 4Yr Premium Support with Onsite + £230.40

Whereas the Ailenware warranties are: 2Yr Premium Support with Onsite Service + £318.81 3Yr Premium Support with Onsite Service + £458.80 4Yr Premium Support with Onsite Service + £618.81.

Can anyone explain this massive discrepancy as it's really affecting my decision? I'd rather go for the Ailenware m15 but, if the warranty is that high, it might force me to switch to the XPS 15. Thanks all!

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1 Reply
6 Indium

Re: Ailenware: Why Are Warranty Costs so High Compared to XP

I doubt you'll get an official answer from Dell, and anyone else including me would just be guessing, but my take is that pricing obviously involves a lot of factors, not all of which are based on actual cost.  The M15 will see lower sales, which means Dell's costs to maintain support for it over a given period of time (retaining the ability to make parts, storing parts, etc.) have to be recouped over a smaller number of sold units. Additionally, the M15 has just launched and represents a new category for Dell (15-inch, somewhat thin and light fully gaming-grade laptop), Dell might not know exactly how many units they'll sell, so they may be playing it safe there.  And if parts actually need to be replaced under warranty, the cost of those parts will generally be higher, partly because they're higher-end parts and also because again the M15 is a lower-volume model to begin with, so its parts won't benefit from economy of scale.  The M15 probably also has more parts overall, such as the parts to enable the AlienFX lighting, just to name one obvious example.

And then of course there's the fact that Alienware is a higher-end brand than XPS, and higher-end items tend to command higher prices even if costs aren't commensurately higher (i.e. higher profit margins) simply because they can.  That's not unique to Alienware, Dell, or even the PC industry.

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